Gavin was there beside me with Gerard, and interacting on this topic… Gerard having similar gifting and challenges.
This is my meditation this morning, and from yesterday…. As I refused to walk in the rutts.
Yesterday I contacted someone, to get to know him better, and his chaos immediately sucked me in.
I saw need… I began to pray for him, and for me… I walked out my front door. and my help was far away, and so I was able to lean on Art Ferreira and Robert Kumbalavelil, my Christian brothers and neighbours. I told them what I’d just learned… and submitted to their words (Ephesians 5:21)
“Being in community” we are whom we are called to be.
I am an intercessor, I am an integrator (connector)
I find the ones in need? Or they are drawn to me? Nonetheless, I am to lean on these around me.
To be governed by one another’s strengths, not one another’s weakness
To be “unknown” as I make Christ known.
Point out in word, demeanour and action, “it’s not me you’re looking for, it is He.
2 Timothy 1:9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,
Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me
Our past is in “doesn’t matter anymore ville” both good and bad, because God is leading us into what’s next! It’s easy to rest on reputation, it’s easy to hold onto hurts, to hold on to past screw ups, but let it all go! What’s next is God’s call…
This is a sketch pad type post.
I realize that its about relationship with God. It’s not a method
It’s the listening presence of God.
I follow my heart, my rhythm of the moment.
Even as I left home to go to “the event” I felt a calm hunger, a kind of social exhaustion. I did not feel the need to socialize nor interact.
And then I find myself drawn in. I flutter here and there, renewing acquaintances, making new ones, kibitzing around… and stumbling into the room where there’s a board meeting going on. God has something to say to this one… I gently moderate and refocus and listen on the inside and guide the conversation over, word by word and phrase by phrase to what he’s asking me to speak.
What does that look like?
I am getting up to get cream for my coffee, there’s someone standing in my way… I kibitz… I risk a little more… and the woman at the well is paralleled.
Yes, there is intuition involved, and my personal experience, as I’ve grown in this that I’ve done since I was 16 years old.
I know that if I make eye contact with people, and they turn away, they want to be left alone. But I also know that when I’ve mentioned God, and the conversation suddenly gets cold. The person gestures in some way to end our interaction. But there’s other times where there is a knowing look, and we both know that we are believers.
That experience of walking down Vimy Road, on the way home from the bus stop. Nobody was around to listen, but me. But I was learning while I was talking. I stopped on my front steps to complete the thoughts I was sharing, but that were arguably the Holy Spirit speaking through me.
When I was in college, I heard his voice, and his urging to speak. I knew when he was telling me to be quiet, I spoke anyways, and freaked out my roommate. I checked my experience with other Christians to do a kind of showing off. “Hey, look at me, look what I can do!” and their doubt and being unimpressed…
So, here I am all these years later knowing that I don’t need their belief in me to continuing doing what God has called me to do.
Running Down Vimy 